CHICAGO—U.S. farmers are planning to boost corn acreage in 2023, eyeing lower prices of fertilizer needed to grow the crop and hoping for a bumper crop after a late season drought withered last year’s grain harvest and left U.S. corn supplies near a decade low.
Plans for the upcoming season were made even as doubts mounted about demand and price gains for soybeans outstripped corn late last year. But early acreage forecasts and interviews with farmers show their faith in the biggest U.S. crop has not waned.
A big crop from the world’s largest corn exporter, pared with more modest demand as global economic growth cools, could further ease prices for the staple used in fuel and animal feed that have come down after surging to a 10-year high when Russia invaded major corn producer Ukraine a year ago….